portion of the artwork for Peter Schwartz's poem

The 7 Laws of Radiation
Peter Schwartz

1.

there’s a mosquito in your muscles that just wants more
it meant to fight for every inch of anything but broke and 

wouldn’t wear a ripped tutu because ballets feel like funerals
wouldn’t say automatic or change its accent to become a more fluent vampire

wouldn’t orphan itself for a uniform or undress
on borrowed acreage with no lotion for the insects

wouldn’t blister in a jar that just leads to
lava anyway

 

2.

invisible oven
invisible seeds
invisible rockets
invisible nails
invisible natives
invisible oasis monkeys
brutal carpentry

 

3.

inertia has no pearls
your voltage spirals unbeautifully

this serial guest shouldn’t have been a speck
now he’s in a vault with no thermometer doing yoga

he begs, extracts, catalogs, forecasts, filters, perfects, and pilots
he remembers how leeches have no bones

but he can’t stop the moonwalk of your opening irises
and corresponding ah 

 
4.

heaven’s not a hospital
ambulances aren’t islands

nobody gets here by balloon
there’s no nowhere good enough not to pop it

camouflage is silly at certain altitudes anyway
a dollar of eclipse and your cheated leaking chemicals

darken the landscape like pumpkin blood
before a very long rain

 

5.

indigenous eggs
indigenous shells  
indigenous concert
indigenous cake
indigenous knife
your first indigenous birthday
says hello

 

6.

meat is the new arithmetic
it doesn’t fully absorb the numbers

it hijacks any stretcher headed west
like drugs and police dogs but

doesn’t invite the right beams
doesn’t know how to fish through the curtains

or defend against rabies or vertigo
or acne or hemophilia

it doesn’t digest but parrots and regurgitates
without tasting any flavor

 

7.

invisible breakfasts, lunches, and dinners
pile on an invisible beach with no waves

there’s no other nowhere like this
you tunnel back after each missed meal like nothing happened 

but this triangle is older than your vague vacations
and yawns at becoming

an indigenous inlet, separate astronomy
an invisible god


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FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 47 | Spring 2016